Messages: 2010

By John Walker

15th December 2010:

Update on developments: new photo of PC McKee signing with protestors; two interpreted theatre performances for Christmas; and a report on Our Space meetings in Autumn 2010, in particular the 'Personalisation Agenda'.

NEWS: University of Sussex has been awarded a grant to work with the Deaf, rural and immigrant communities and capture their 'oral histories'. Trinity College Dublin will be working with the promoter to explore how Deaf people's histories are captured, archived and exhibited. This project will start in November 2010 and complete in October 2012. See page published on this site.

24th October 2010:

The Our Space conference took place on Friday and a total of 25 people attended the day. It was opened with a keynote by Dr. Mike Gulliver and followed by workshops led by the project's partners. It included a presentation by John Walker on the relationship between this website, the status of Deaf people in Sussex, reminiscence and health & wellbeing.

6th October 2010:

All of the details for the Our Space conference are now published on the website.

25th September 2010:

Stats review at 6 month since the soft launch:

A total of 59 pages have been published on this site;

2,537 people visited the site (different IP addresses);

On average, people view 8 to 9 pages per visit; and

Spend an average of 5 minutes 49 seconds on the site;

Half are new visitors and half are returning visitors;

61% of visitors stayed to view more than one page;

Most visitors are from the UK, USA, Canada and Australia;

The most popular page is the photos of the Deaf Culture day.

24TH September 2010:

Information has been posted on the Our Space meetings and conference.

20th September 2010:

A new page published on Herbert Blunden, welfare worker for Deaf people. Thanks to Sarah Bown/John Hay for forwarding information on Herbert.

25th August 2010:

A new page was published on the Krazy Kat Theatre Company, hence a new category was set up for 'Deaf Theatre'.

3rd August 2010:

This message page is becoming so long, it is taking time to load on a slower connection speed. An archive section to this page has been set up.

29th July 2010:

The home page of the Sussex Deaf History site now has more than one rotating picture; has been using two pictures for quite a while. It now includes: 1. BSL march in 2001; 2. Diana, Princess of Wales, visiting the 100th anniversary congress of the BDA in 1990; 3. Four volunteers (Pam, Linda, Natalie, and Paul) at the Deaf Culture day in 2010; 4. The publicans of the Regency Tavern celebrating the New Year with Marco in 1997; 5. The original building of the Brighton Institution in 1973.

A page was published on Roanna and Corrina Simmons success at the 2005 Deaflympics.

27th July 2010:

With kind permission from the James Gray collection, we have been given permission to replicate the photo of the Brighton Institution.

23rd July 2010:

Joshua kindly forwarded some pictures from Hamilton Lodge school, which will help to visualise the history of the school; so many thanks to him.

Just yesterday, a press release was published by the International Congress on Education of the Deaf to state that they denounce the resolutions of the Milan 1880 congress, ICED was developed out of this event. We can now put a full stop to 130 years of oralism - find out more on the webpage.

17th July 2010:

Dr. Steve Emery kindly submitted an autobiographical narrative and it is published on the website.

16th July 2010:

Two new pages have been published today: Hamilton Lodge School by a Year 11 student, Joshua Robinson; and Deaf Studies research unit in University of Sussex from 1968 to 1977.

23rd June 2010:

A page is published on the milestones of Eastbourne Deaf Club supported by reports in the newpapers.

9th June 2010:

A page of photos from the Deaf Culture Day has been published.

18th May 2010:

In order to capture the outcome of the Deaf Culture day, a new category was created for the event in the 'topics' section. It includes a short report and the launch of the Blue Heritage Plaque on the site of the Brighton Institution.

We have received interest in individuals who would like to contribute narratives to this website. A separate category has been created to hold them; the first contribution from Sarah Playforth, 'One Foot in Both Worlds'.

16th May 2010:

We are one day after the Deaf Culture day and bombarded with messages of congratulations. The Deaf Culture day has been re-written to represent the event and capture some of the comments. More photos and film will be added to this page when they are ready.

15th May 2010:

Today, the Sussex Deaf History website is officially launched nationally at the Deaf Culture day held at Hamilton Lodge School. Thank you to everyone who has agreed to contribute to the site, we look forward to working with you.

14th May 2010:

About Us has been updated with photos and text, the full Editorial Panel are now published.

12th May 2010:

Just to catch up with developments on the site: more comments on Brighton Institution page; programme included on the Deaf Culture Day; and new page on the Deaf services video from 2003.

A guestbook has been attached to the main menu of the site. The site allows for people to make comments about individual subjects but not about the site as a whole. If you like the site or have suggestions for improvements, why don't you write something or create a video on YouTube or Facebook and post a link. You will need to register with the site in order to post your message.

5th May 2010:

Geoffrey Eagling contributed two pages on Arthur Mortlock Sleight and Deaf sports at the Brighton Institution.

After a search through the Silent Times, several pictures of William Sleight, Rev. William Blomefield Sleight and Arthur Mortlock Sleight were found. Also, some extra facts were included; the pictures seem to make a difference to the articles. It has been a real inspiration to see how much influence the Brighton Institution and the Sleight family had in the country and the UK, some of which had reached America.

4th May 2010:

Several updates today: new page on the Our Space meeting in April focussing on political parties. The questions raised were also sent to representatives of other parties, insofar one response from the Conservatives. More will be added as soon as they are received.

Take a moment to have a look at the comments section of the Brighton Institution, some interesting contributions there: Cecil Bedwell and Mary Anne Chappelow growing up at the school and later getting married. It only took a quick trip to the census survey to find this information.

A lovely card was received from Markku Jokinen, President of WFD, who thanks the Our Space group for raising £120 at the Christmas Lecture; I scanned it and included it on the relevant page.

2nd May 2010:

Brought together all of the festival events onto one page. It includes events from the festival proper, fringe festival and from outside of the festival.

26th April 2010:

Theatre dates, ahead of the Brighton Festival, have been received; they have all been placed on the events calendar.

23rd April 2010:

The documentation of William Sleight (Headmaster) and his son, Rev. William Blomefield Sleight, were started to get confusing. The two individuals now have their own pages.

22nd April 2010:

Over the last three days, visits to the site have ranged between 40 to 60 people per day. Most stay on the site for 10 minutes and view 12 pages.

An extra page published on PC McKee and the sit-in after the BSL march, Grant McKee has made contact with a member of the panel since it was published.

20th April 2010:

More pages rolling out today: a couple more on the Our Space project, Punch and Judy Club and The Regency Tavern. Thanks to Marco who managed to fish some photos from a New Year party in 1996. More pages on the way.

This website is now officially one month old; in the space of a month, 31 pages were published. The website now includes written text, photos and film.

There is more to come over the next week or so. Don't forget you can create your own page by registering as a contributor - follow the instructions on the home page.

19th April 2010:

Please forgive this influx of new pages, this is a catch up of several pages on University of Sussex and the Our Space project.

18th April 2010:

Two new pages on the centenary congress of the BDA held at the Brighton Centre - a good snapshot of Brighton life and the Deaf community in 1990.

16th April 2010:

With thanks to Simon Hesselberg, the two part documentary of the 100th anniversary congress of the BDA, shown on See Hear, will be uploaded onto the website. The first 10 minutes has been published. More on its way.

12th April 2010:

New page published by Geoffrey Eagling: Dr Bernard Pitcher.

7th April 2010:

New dates added to event calendar. The website has seen 12.5 visits per day in the last 30 days on average; all visits from UK, Ireland, France, Malaysia and Australia.

1st April 2010:

Not an April Fools message (!) but the site is now listed on google and searchable.

30th March 2010:

Site was presented to the Community of Practice to update them on progress. The Our Space meeting allowed members of the community to reminisce on major events over the last 30 years. Three individuals were identified as contributors. A new category created for the BDA Centenary Congress in 1990 (thanks to Marco for finding the YouTube clip); I hope it will spark off some memories.

29th March 2010:

A new page created on the Brighton Institution, separate from William Sleight, to allow visitors to the site to add their memories of the school in Eastern road and Wivelsfield Green Farm. New section created on the Our Space project to document the progress of the Community of Practice; it now holds some introductory pages.

24th March 2010:

William Sleight page adjusted following corrections from Geoffrey Eagling. Started using [1] notation to include where the source of additional information derives from. New page created on Prof. Reginald M. Phillips.

23rd March 2010:

All blue squared icons have been replaced with the March picture. DST back issues is added to the first visit list. Updated the time line to include the transition from Brighton Institution for Instruction of the Deaf & Dumb to Ovingdean Hall School. A page was created on William Sleight.

Six people have registered with the site as contributors since the soft launch.

22nd March 2010:

DST was added and this site was included on the DST facebook site. Funders statement added to the scrapline. New pages in the Centre for Deaf Studies section, including BSL teaching and project/research. Call for organisations and services to create pages on their histories was sent out. After an email conversation with Diana Neal, DST Editor, she agreed to place past issues of DST on this site - already some have been uploaded.

Congratulations for the launch of this site has been received from Fred Gray and Simon Northmore (from the funder) and Pam Coare (Director for CCE).

21st March 2010:

The password lock on the website was taken off allowing visitors to see the website. Two new pages were added and a new section, 'events', was added. The practice pages were removed and had a general tidy up.

20th March 2010:

The website was officially 'soft launched' at the Our Space workshop. It was presented by John Walker and Gavin and John Lilley and Simon Hesselberg were also present. Approximately 50 people received training on how to use the site.

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